IKEA Meatball Scandal in China: It’s Not What You Think

At the risk of beating a dead horse, China Real Time feels compelled to update readers on the latest flare-up in the global meat contamination scandal from the Chinese point of view.

According to a report in the state-run China Daily on Wednesday, the Swedish meatballs that furniture retailer IKEA sells in China have stirred controversy– not because they were found to contain equine DNA like some of the company’s meatballs in Europe, but because it turns out they’re made in China.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

This picture taken on Feb. 25, 2013 shows meatballs at IKEA department store in Brno, the Czech Republic.

“I thought the meatballs were imported from Sweden,” the China Daily quoted Jiang Tong, an IT worker in Beijing, as saying. “I don’t think I will order such meatballs in the future.”

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IKEA’s spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment. China Daily said the meatballs at IKEA’s China outlets do not contain horsemeat, as the company gets its meatballs, made with beef and pork, from a manufacturer based in China’s coastal Fujian province.

News of horsemeat turning up in beef products sourced in Europe has spread across the globe in recent weeks, hurting the reputations of some of Europe’s biggest food producers. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that IKEA has removed meatballs from many of its cafeterias after traces of horsemeat were found in a batch in the Czech Republic.

The scandal has even hit Hong Kong, where consumers are typically willing to eat just about anything but have found the idea of eating horse-tainted Bolognese just a bit too hard to swallow.

But in China, where food safety scandals—from exploding watermelons to tainted milk— are a stable part of the daily diet, discovering that Swedish meatballs are made at home could be more worrisome.

“Well, [eating horse-tainted meatballs] is better than eating yogurt laced with leather shoes,” wrote one user of Sina Corp.’s Weibo microblogging service, referring to unproven but widespread rumors last year that industrial gelatin made from discarded shoes had made its way into locally produced yogurt and jelly products.

“Europeans really get worked up over nothing,” wrote another. “It’s just horse, not poison.”

To be sure, some in China were upset at the idea that horsemeat might have made its way into IKEA’s meatballs. “I definitely will not eat meatballs produced by IKEA in the next few days, until the company gives a clear clarification,” China Daily quoted another consumer, Wu Xia, who is a regular at the IKEA cafeteria in Beijing, as saying. “It’s not that horsemeat is not safe. But I think horses are pets and cannot be eaten.”

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